Between January and September 2011, the pensions and insurance business has generated a net attributable profit of €238m.
In the pension sector, Afore Bancomer continued to present outstanding growth, with a solid performance in activity. It closed the third quarter of 2011 with €12,073 in assets under management (up 4.2% year-on-year) and 4.6% growth in funds gathering. Both variables are essential both to the progress of revenue from fees and commissions (which rose 9.1% compared to the same period of 2010) and to record a net attributable profit of €55m. This latter figure is very positive (down 1.9% year-on-year) considering the current turbulent situation of the financial markets.
The insurance business maintained a high level of activity, with a 21.2% year-on-year increase in total written premiums. New funds gathered through ILP (“Inversión Libre Patrimonial”: Free Wealth Investment) and the performance of the “Creditón Nómina” loan, with increased volumes generating higher premiums than initially estimated, were very important, once again, this quarter. In addition, the “AutoSeguro” car insurance product continued to perform well thanks to the campaigns carried out in 2011. One such example was the third quarter 2011 launch of “Auto Alerta” by Seguros Bancomer; this product, which enables the immediate tracking of a vehicle in the event of an accident, will be able to serve nearly 600,000 customers. It will also allow for the reporting of accidents with a press of a button on a mobile telephone.
The above said, together with the good management of expenses and low accident rates reported in the car and life insurance sectors, contributes to a 9.9% year-on-year profit growth. Excluding the one-off item in the first quarter of 2010 associated with the change in measurement of car related provisions, growth was 14.1%.